Christine Marot

Although KwaZulu-Natal-based, Christine Marot never passes up an opportunity to head south and sample the many delights of the Mother City.

Despite having visited many of the world’s continents, she believes there’s no place like home, and enjoys promoting Cape Town’s mix of cultural, historical, natural and adventure tourism opportunities.

She believes current tourism trends reflect a greater reliance on bloggers’ first-hand experiences, which more often than not contain nuggets of useful information.

With a love of the outdoors, Christine is happiest visiting the penguins at Boulders Beach, catching waves at Kommetjie, hiking up Table Mountain or sipping a chardonnay under massive oak trees in the winelands.

A truly laduma moment.
Photo courtesy colm.mcmullan
Officially, South Africa has 11 languages, second only to India, with 22. Many more languages are spoken in the country besides, from Greek to Gujarati and a number of local creoles and pidgins. There are, however, some sayings that are commonly used and understood across our country, despite (or perhaps because of) its polyglot nature. Here’s a brief introduction to some South Africanisms adapted from local languages.

Prime Circle. Photo courtesy Steve Crane
The music of South Africa is as diverse as the colours of her rainbow nation. From hip-hop to hard rock and electro-jazz to Afro-fusion, traditional genres have been melded to create unique sounds that reflect the influence of her multi-cultural peoples.

Photo courtesy gogap
The clear, blue skies above Cape Town lend themselves to a variety of exciting activities, from helicopter flips and plane rides to paragliding, skydiving and microlighting. There’s surely no better way of catching a bird’s-eye view of the entire Mother City – from her beautiful mountains to her stunning beaches.

Cape Town markets are well known for their fresh produce. Photo courtesy mallix
Why not turn weekend drudgery into an al fresco breakfast and family outing, surrounded by the beauty of the Cape outdoors?